Enzymes are a kind of protein composed of multiple amino acids connected to each other that catalyze (=increase rate of) chemical reaction. Most of the proteins have 3-dimensional structures and can be changed depending on many factors. Among them, temperature change is one of most important factor. And many enzymatic reactions (enzymatic digestion) occur at temperatures similar to the body temperature. Trypsin is an enzyme that cleaves lysine or arginine chains of proteins. Trypsin digestion can be used for breaking them down into peptides and analyzing the resulting peptide fragments. Typically, such enzymatic reactions require about 12 or more hours of time at about 37° C.
If the enzymatic reactions are performed while irradiating microwaves, the proteolytic cleavage may be accelerated. For example, Korean Patent Application Publication No. 10-2009-0110599 describes heating and ionic conduction based on dipolar polarization using microwaves and discloses bonding or cleavage of specific compounds using the same. And, a microwave oven, which is a commonly used kitchen appliance, heats food by heating water molecules with electromagnetic waves of resonance frequency.
Since the microwave oven is a kind of cavity resonator enclosed with metal, there are locations where the electromagnetic waves are stronger and weaker inside the microwave oven. In order that the microwaves are uniformly absorbed by food, mixing of the irradiated microwaves or rotating of the food container is required. Not just the microwave oven, all research-purpose microwave instruments have the same problem that the microwaves do not reach all locations uniformly. In addition, an apparatus for conducting enzymatic reactions using microwaves has the problem that the generation of microwaves is stopped instantly when the temperature inside a chamber reaches a setting temperature. This inevitably slows the enzymatic reactions.